A Woman's Place

by Barbara Delinsky

  “What a line.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know. That’s the trouble.” Dennis hadn’t made me any kind of dinner in all the time I’d known him. Pampering me wasn’t on his agenda.

  But did it ever sound good.

  I ran back across the floor to where Brody sat, gave him a last, light kiss, then fled before I forgot what I had to do.

  Back at the lighthouse, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor of my dark bedroom with my face to the sea, I thought back to that first major trauma of our marriage. How I had agonized! I hadn’t wanted to trust Dennis again—kept fearing there was more to the story—but he had fought for our marriage. He had been its advocate then, as I had been in more recent years. He had sworn he loved me. He had sworn he loved me. He had sworn I knew everything.

  Maybe I did.

  Then again, maybe I didn’t.

  Going downstairs, I dragged a carton from the small storage bin off the living room, opened it, and thumbed through the files. They were ones I had taken on that day when the court had upheld the Order to Vacate, mostly records of my earliest WickerWise days.

  But the folder I wanted had nothing to do with WickerWise. It contained canceled checks, a letter, and an obituary notice. I singled it out and tugged it up. The minute it cleared the others, I knew something was wrong. It was way too thin. Opening it was a formality. I already knew it was empty.

  If I had any qualms about looking for dirt, they were put to rest the following morning. Even before I could call her myself, Carmen called me to say that Morgan had hit gold.

  “Dennis’s calendar says that he attended an investment seminar in Vermont last July. Morgan cross-checked those days with hotel records and credit card receipts. Dennis was in Vermont last July, all right, but there wasn’t any investment seminar within a hundred-mile radius of where he stayed, and he stayed, literally stayed, didn’t leave his room for more than an hour here or there the entire time. It wasn’t a hotel, it was a motel, a small motel. The owner and the desk clerk, both male, identified photos of Dennis and Phoebe. It didn’t take much prodding. Seems they coveted Phoebe and Dennis’s car.”

  It was certainly good news for my case, though I couldn’t deny the hurt. July. The thought of it made me sick. And angry.

  I had already told Carmen about Adrienne. Now I shared my deeper doubts.

  Two days later, she and I met Morgan Houser in a no-name coffee shop in Charlestown that was, apparently, as close to an office as Morgan had. We had our own private corner and a steady supply of hot coffee and sweet rolls. Morgan, a tall, fair-haired, fair-skinned Swede, was neat, clean, observant. For the most part, he listened and took notes while I talked.

  “When Dennis graduated from business school, he took a job with an investment firm in Greenwich. It was a mid-level position, with room to move ahead if he proved himself. He was determined to do that. He wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was forty. He hadn’t been with the firm long when he met the wife of one of the senior partners. She was much older than he was, but sexy and smart.

  “Was her marriage on the rocks?” Carmen asked.

  “She told Dennis that, but he found out it wasn’t. She lived with her husband and had no plans to divorce him. She just liked playing around. Dennis, being young and slightly egocentric, was flattered. He couldn’t believe that this gorgeous woman—this gorgeous worldly woman—had singled him out. The way he told it to me, he knew that what they were doing was wrong, but figured that if she was going into it with her eyes wide open, and if he was going into it with his eyes wide open, it was okay.”

  “Were you and Dennis dating at the time?” It was Carmen again. Morgan just listened.

  “Long distance. I was a senior in college. We talked a lot but didn’t see each other more than once a month. We hadn’t made a commitment yet.”

  “Not sexual?” she asked quietly.

  I pushed my coffee mug around on the yellow Formica. “Yes, sexual. Innocent me. I had no idea what was going on during those work weeks between visits.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “A year into my marriage.”

  “He married you, all the while he was having an affair with her?”

  “Oh, no. The affair ended before we got to the altar. Funny, but we waited. We could have gotten married sooner, but something held us back. I always thought it was just Dennis needing time to get settled and me needing that extra security. In hindsight, I realized it was Adrienne.”

  “Adrienne who?” Morgan asked.

  “Hadley.” I watched him write down the name. “I learned about her by accident—or so I thought at the time. Only after did I realize it wasn’t an accident. Dennis wanted me to know. Otherwise he never would have left a letter from her right there with the rest of the bills. It seems he’d been paying her hush money to the tune of a thousand a month. She wanted more. That was probably why he wanted me to know. He was feeling squeezed.”

  “Hush money for what?” Carmen asked.

  “He said it was to keep their affair a secret. Apparently, her husband let her play around as long as it wasn’t with anyone in the firm. Her husband was Lee,” I told Morgan. “They lived in Greenwich. If Lee found out about Dennis, he would have kicked him out. She threatened to tell him everything, if Dennis didn’t pay up.”

  “A thousand a month,” Morgan said. “That had to have cut some into his take. He couldn’t have been making a whole lot starting out. Why didn’t he just quit and go work somewhere else?”

  “I asked him that. More than once. To me it seemed the better thing to do than bowing to black-mail, but he said that she could hurt his career, no matter where he worked, and that at the time the payments began, he was doing too well at Hadley and Gray—that was the firm—to rock the boat. And he was doing well. He knew exactly where to point his clients. They made money. So did he. He moved up fast. The firm thought he was brilliant. Then things quieted. By the time I found out about the payments, after we were married, his career had leveled off. Oh, he was still doing well, but he wasn’t the wunderkind anymore. I told him that I didn’t see why he had to keep paying Adrienne. If Hadley and Gray wasn’t magic for him anymore, he could tell Adrienne to go to hell and open his own firm, couldn’t he?”

  “Couldn’t he?” Carmen asked.

  I paused while the waitress topped off our coffees, then said, “I’d have thought so. He did it a few years later, anyway. At the time, though, he argued that Adrienne was threatening to spread a rumor that he was involved in illegal trading. I actually read that in the letter she sent. She said—and this is pretty nearly a quote, I read that letter so many times—that he would be hard put to find clients if they thought he was on the verge of indictment. She said she needed more money, that she was desperate. She hadn’t seen her husband in a year, and she was sick. MS, she said. It was right there in the letter. She actually died four months later, but not of MS. Of lung cancer. I read that in the obituary that was supposed to be in my file along with the letter and a handful of canceled checks.”

  Morgan asked for dates—when Dennis had signed on with Hadley and Gray, when the affair had taken place with Adrienne, when she had died. Then he asked, “Why did you keep the file?”

  “I’ve asked myself that dozens of times. I’m not sure. I guess I thought that having it was like having insurance, like as long as I had proof of what Dennis had done, he wouldn’t do it again. That affair shook me up. I was young and naive. I thought he was pretty perfect, then he went and had an affair with his boss’s wife, all while he and I were dating. The trust I’d felt,” I waved a hand, “gone. I considered divorce. Dennis talked me out of it. He was able to reestablish that trust, but it took a while.”

  I turned to Carmen. “That first pregnancy? I conceived right before I found Adrienne’s letter. By the time I learned about the baby, I was a mess. I would never have had an abortion had I felt more secure.”

  Carmen turned to Morgan. “The
medical files pertaining to that abortion somehow fell into Jenovitz’s hands. Claire’s husband claims he wasn’t responsible. Can we find out who was?”

  Morgan’s skewed smile left no doubt that he could.

  When he asked, I had no trouble remembering those particular names and dates. They were etched for eternity in my brain.

  Carmen directed me back to the Hadley file. “Does Dennis have access to the lighthouse?”

  “No. I’m the only one with a key. That file must have been emptied before I took it from the house. I didn’t check it at the time. It was tucked in with the rest. I just swept the whole bunch up and put them in a box.”

  “Did he know the file existed?”

  “I never thought so, but he must have. No one else had either the opportunity or the cause to clean it out.”

  “Any idea when it was done?”

  “None. I haven’t opened that folder in years. For all I know, it’s been empty that long. Maybe he found it one day, was disgusted that I’d kept it, and just threw everything out. Or maybe he did it last month, as a precaution.”

  “A precaution against what?” Carmen asked.

  “Precisely,” I answered with a pointed look at Morgan. “I have to know if there’s more.”

  I left that coffee shop in Charlestown knowing I was justified in what I was doing, but feeling guilty nonetheless. Old habits died hard. Part of me still saw Dennis as my husband. That part felt I was betraying him.

  Back in the office, my guilt feelings multiplied.

  First, Kikit called to say that her stomach hurt. I had barely finished asking her what she had eaten, when Dennis took the phone from her and said she was fine. She came back on the line in tears, said I didn’t love her anymore, and hung up. When I called back, she was the one to snatch up the phone. She listened to my protestations of love, but she was still crying, small hiccoughing sobs that wrenched me when Dennis took the phone again. Though I could hear him comforting her—he was actually surprisingly gentle—I felt awful.

  Then Rona called, painting a dreadful picture of Connie’s condition and begging me to come. Having talked with Mom that morning, I didn’t think things were as bad as Rona made them sound. Since she didn’t know the details of my situation here, she didn’t understand when I said I couldn’t leave.

  So I felt guilty betraying Dennis, guilty deserting Kikit, guilty telling Rona half-truths, guilty abandoning Mom.

  And then there was Brody. What was I guilty of with him?

  Staring.

  At the hand splayed on the spreadsheet before him. At the arm that corded up when he reached for the phone and the chest that broadened when he stretched. At the long legs that wore jeans, but that I had seen enough times without to know the color of the hair thereupon.

  I looked up to find his eyes on me and a knowing half-smile on his face, and I looked away fast.

  On Friday afternoon, a clerk from the appeals court called Carmen to say that the judge was giving Arthur Heuber until the following Wednesday to file a written opposition to our petition.

  I knew that it was a victory of sorts, that the judge might have summarily refused to review Selwey’s decision and ended it there. But his action meant that nothing would happen for another five days.

  One delay after another. When would it end?

  thirteen

  “How are you, Mom?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “How was your night?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “More important, I woke up. I wonder sometimes, though.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Why I’m still here. Is there a purpose?”

  “Yes. Us. You give us a focus. Just knowing you’re there means a lot.”

  “Are you happy, Claire?” Out of the blue.

  “Happy?” I asked, thinking fast.

  “In life. I need to know. I miss seeing you smile.”

  “I’m smiling now. We’re off in another hour to the circus. The kids are excited.”

  “Well, that’s good. Memories, you know. Me, I couldn’t bear the animal smell.”

  I laughed. It was an old line, the standard excuse.

  “I should have taken you,” she said sadly. “I blamed the money, but I had enough. I was just frightened to spend. So there’s another regret.”

  “No regret. Rona and I did fine without the circus.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I lie here thinking maybe I wouldn’t have minded the animal smell at all. But I’ll never know.”

  “I’ll just have to bring you a whole bunch of souvenirs, then.”

  “When? I miss you.”

  “Same here, Mom. I’m hoping to get there next week.”

  “Monday? Tuesday?”

  “Thursday. As early as the planes fly. Shall I bring breakfast?”

  “Oh, I’d like that,” she said with the first sound of a smile. “And the latest catalogue? The one with winter cruisewear? Has it come?”

  She had said the one thing that could boost my spirits. The day when my mother no longer cared to dream over lacy lingerie would be the day the end was truly near.

  “I’ll bring it if it has,” I assured her. “Mom, it may be too late for me to call when we get back tonight. Can I talk with you in the morning?”

  “If I’m here.”

  “You’ll be there. Who else will appreciate how awful the elephants smell?”

  I pulled into the driveway at ten and let the car idle while I waited for Kikit and Johnny to join me. They were usually out the front door before I shifted the car into park. This day I sat for five minutes, then, concerned, climbed out.

  “Oh, it’s you, Claire!” Malcolm Addis called from his yard, which abutted ours. “I didn’t recognize the car. Is it your new one?”

  I waved and called back, “It is,” but I continued on up the walk.

  “Not red this time?”

  “Nope.”

  I wondered, as I had more than once picking up the children, what the neighbors thought was going on. Even in spite of the times when I worked late or traveled, they usually saw me around more. They must have known something was up.

  Determined not to look as though I had anything to be ashamed of, I held my head a bit higher. When I reached the front door, I made a show of fishing through my keys while I unobtrusively rapped on the wood.

  Dennis opened the door looking harried. The way he motioned me in suggested I was the latest in a line of annoyances.

  “Not a good morning,” he muttered and turned to yell up the stairs, “Get a move on, you guys!” He scowled back at me, thrust a hand through his hair, went to the stairs. “Clara Kate! John! Your mother’s here!”

  Kikit was the first to appear. She looked nearly as disgruntled as Dennis. Her chin wobbled as she ran down the stairs. “I wanted to wear my green overalls. Daddy said they’d be clean, but they aren’t.”

  “You only wore them Thursday,” Dennis argued.

  “I didn’t. I wore them Tuesday. And that isn’t all that isn’t clean,” she told me. “My best T-shirts are still in the wash.”

  “What’s wrong with the one you have on?” Dennis asked.

  She grimaced down at it. “It’s all wrinkled!”

  “Am I supposed to iron T-shirts?” Dennis asked me.

  “No. You’re supposed to smooth them and fold them while they’re warm from the dryer.”

  “Okay,” he said agreeably enough, “I can do that.” To Kikit, he said, “Where is your brother? John? Get down here!”

  “I look awful, Mommy.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  “I wanted to look nice for Joy. Is she in the car?”

  “She’s back at Brody’s. We’ll swing by on the way.” I took her jacket from the hall closet. “Go wait outside, sweetheart. I’ll be out with Johnny in a minute.”

  “No, you won’t.” She slid her arms into the jacket on her way out the door. “He isn’t coming.”
/>   Dennis started up the stairs. “John! Where in the—there you are.” He stopped midway up when Johnny appeared at the top.

  I joined Dennis on the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Nothing. I just don’t want to go.”

  “But you love the circus.”

  “I’ve been lots of times. I kinda wanna stay here with Dad.”

  The sting of rejection was swift and sharp. I was trying to parry it, telling myself not to take it personally, that Johnny simply felt caught between us, when Dennis sighed. “I wasn’t planning to stay here, John. As soon as you leave, I’m going to Boston.”

  “Can I come?”

  “No.”

  Johnny’s shoulders drooped. “Can I wait here till you get home?”

  “No,” Dennis said again, but gently. “I have business there. It’ll take me most of the day. You’d be bored to death. Go to the circus with Mommy and Kikit, and another day you and I will go into Boston.”

  Johnny looked doubtful.

  Dennis climbed several more steps until he and Johnny were on eye level. Taking Johnny’s shoulders, he said softly, “I promise. Just us two. Now go on. Get your sneaks.”

  Either he was more sensitive a father than I’d given him credit for, or he was so desperate to get to his business in Boston that he would promise his son the world. I didn’t care the cause. I just prayed he would follow through.

  Johnny disappeared down the hall.

  At first, Dennis and I just stood there, side by side, waiting for him in silence.

  Then I asked, “Did you know that was coming?”

  “I didn’t put him up to it, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Did you know he didn’t want to go?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me. He doesn’t say a hell of a lot.”

  “Do you ask? In general. If you see him brooding, do you ask what’s wrong?”

  “Yes. That doesn’t mean he answers.”

  “Do you think he’s disturbed?”

  “God, no.”

  “Upset. Maybe we should sit down with him, both of us, and get him to talk.”